


Of Three Worlds

by Pitseleh



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - Martin
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Crack, Crack Pairing, M/M, Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pitseleh/pseuds/Pitseleh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three AUs, six scenes, one attempt at making a crack pairing seem as serious business as possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Three Worlds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minviendha (Lise)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/gifts).



> Early Xmas present for Lise. She wanted genderbending, AUs and Jaime/Robb, and I did my best to provide. To clarify-- it's Jaime/Robb in one of three scenarioes: one is canon, one where Robb lives, and one where Robb is a chick. And now you can't say you weren't warned.

When they meet for the first time, they do not really meet. Jaime is aware, in some small corner of his mind, that Eddard has managed to produce a son, and his son is at this tourney, but Jaime also knows Tyrion is with another whore for all it matters to him.

Robb is not Cersei, and would have suffered for it if either had cared at all.

Later, Robb is older and Jaime, never one to fall behind, has continued to age.

When Robb sees the heir of Lannister for the first time, he's somewhat underwhelmed. This man looks nothing like his father, he can not be all that the people talk about behind their hands with a smile on their face. Then again, no one quite looks like the Lord of Winterfell; most people, Robb has learned, occasionally smile.

Jaime Lannister is bright and golden and unlike anyone Robb has ever seen, up north. They do not have a tourney, Robb laments, but they have a long, drawn out dinner where Robb pesters Jon with questions about their guest.

"They say he is the best knight at court." Robb says, "At tourneys, too-- though father would be better, if he fought at tourneys."

Jon nods, drinking his wine and not meeting Robb's lady mother's scornful eye across the table, "Father says it is fool-hearty to fight and not to kill."

"Oh, yes." Robb says, "Father is the best of them."

But from the hall, Robb catches the edge of the white lion's smile, and something in his mind sharpens into a point. It is like what Robb imagines looking at a snake is like; all angles and gleam, little substance, but all the more drawing.

But then, Robb has never seen a snake before, or a lion. What would he know of these strange, southern animals?

•

Jaime finds the boy, tattered and worn, outside Riverrun. It's snowing, and he's feeling generous. The boy is covered in mud, and looks like some sad Tully by-blow, all red hair and pale skin, shivering and dirty.

"What's your name, boy?" Jaime asks, and is stupidly, foolishly hurt when the boy (he's a man, though, Jaime sees; he has a patchy bit of reddish stubble growing around his chin) flinches away. The boy, man, whatever he is, continues to flinch, eventually falling backward into the white snow around them both. He hasn't answered yet, and Jaime is beginning to think him simple. "You have a name, do you not?"

Though, finally, the other man mumbles, "Robb... ert." And then looks away.

Jaime is consumed with pity, though unsure exactly why. Perhaps it's one of those fabled emotions besides arrogance or anger. Brienne would be proud, and if only for that singularly fool-hearty reason, Jaime extends a hand. "Everyone was named some sort of Robert in days past. I imagine Tommen will be the next popular name."

But the Robbert boy (Jaime can't keep but think of this one as a boy; it's something oddly familiar in his demeanor) just scrunches up his face, saying nothing.

Jaime shakes his head. "Or perhaps not. I don't imagine Lannisters would be terribly popular in this area, especially at this time. I assume, then, you'll be turning down my offer of food and a warm bed, however much you seem to need it, and especially with this snow starting. Winter seems to have come."

This is not the first time Jaime has wishes he could be privy to the secret thoughts of other men. He has no skill at guessing what goes on behind the eyes of others. It seems like a difficult decision, perhaps this Robbert is swallowing his pride?

Jaime would know something of that.

But in any case, eventually the boy concedes. Slowly, he stands, and he has a limp to him as he walks. Jaime offers him a hand, and Robbert ignores it with a solemnity Jaime finds eerily familiar.

They get to the castle, and Robbert acts queerly, as to be expected of any man just dragged from the frozen outside full of starving and dying cold. He nearly spits on any Lannister, but that is hardly surprising; Lannisters are not very popular, these days, and especially not in these lands.

In the Riverlands, Lannisters seem only good for hangings.

But maybe that can be changed. Maybe they can feed poor shelterless Tully bastards. Jaime needs a squire. This boy is not too old.

"Can you write?" He asks, when Robbert has been brought warm potatoes and mutton to tear through like a hungry animal.

Robbert looks up, suddenly wary. "Yes. I can write." And then, "I can read, too."

"Well," Jaime lays down, smiling up at the canopy weighed down with unseen snow. "You can do all sorts of things."

•

No one is surprised when the marriage is proposed, but Eddard Stark's oldest daughter is certainly opposed to it.

Jaime himself is just tired. His love is dead and his war is fought, and Jaime has some difficulty waking up in the morning, much less convincing himself he has any right to be alive. The dragon queen tells him it is the wish of his brother, being left alive after his sister (His twin! His other half! The part of Cersei that still lives inside him rages on) is gone. Tyrion says it is t to make amends for everything, and Jaime lets Tyrion think the scores have been settled. It seems to give him happiness, in his life.

Jaime has no right to ruin that. He has no right to be alive, but everyone seems to have forgotten that. He'll take what he may. He'll do what he can, when what he can do is so very little.

Anyway, the dragon queen needs them to marry, and even Robbyn Stark's fabled will is no match for the needs of the last Targaryen.

The marriage itself is a quiet affair, with Jaime preforming all tasks with the mechanical precision of a Maester and Robbyn (_Robb_, she will later tell her husband,_ everyone just calls me Robb_) standing with decidedly haughty disapproval burning in her eyes.

The marriage bed is cold to the touch, and Robb finds herself shrinking away from it. Jaime sees this, and turns, looking up from undoing his braes. "I will not ask anything of you that you do not wish to give." And then he returns to his clothes, eventually naked and alien before her.

Robb twists her lip and scowls, despairing ever so of these double standards the knights always seem to have. "And you? Do you want this?"

Jaime seems taken aback, and somewhere in her mind it occurs to Robb that she is probably the first person to ask him this. She is both saddened and angered by the revelation; did Jaime Lannister never think for himself of his desires? Some white lion _this_ has turned out to be.

But Jaime only considers in the half light, quiet and golden. He looks down to the stub where his sword arm once was. He says, "No."

Robb steps back, confident in her discovery. At least, for this moment, she has some power.

•

While he's heard of this happening before, between squires and their knights, this is something Jaime never expected to happen to _him_. He tries to imagine kissing Arthur Dayne, when he was young, and manages only a repressed shudder.

It awakens the boy sleeping on top of him. Robbert looks up, bleary-eyed. "What's wrong?" He asks, "Is someone coming?"

Jaime shakes his head, trying to rub his eyes but only succeeding in smacking himself in the face with his stub. "No, not for a while yet. I believe you tired me out."

Predictably, Robbert glowers up at him. "Yes, thank you for reminding me. I would have forgotten otherwise."

Despite Robbert's possible original intentions, Jaime smiles, sitting upright and dislodging the now fully awake red-haired lamprey from his chest. "Because my prick was so small and forgettable."

"...Yes. Exactly that."

Jaime chuckles and stands, going to try and find his clothes. There is silence for a few moments, just the sounds of the winds rustling the trees outside their tent, until Robbert speaks up, quiet and unsure. The words are, for once, not fueled by anger or some other misplaced emotion. Jaime hardly recognizes the sound, but when he does, the nostalgia is striking. He never tough he would miss that dungeon, and then, of course he would; he had two hands, then.

"Robbert Rivers isn't my name, you know." The boy says from the bed. "It's Stark. Robb Stark."

Jaime is lacing up his braes. "Oh, yes, that. I'd suspected it for some time, but I hadn't a clue how to go about asking."

Jaime doesn't turn, so he has to imagine the frown now spreading across Robb's features. Confusion, anger and disappointment: surely, it's all there if one were to look.

Right now, he can't quite stand to.

"You _knew_?" Robb squeaks, and Jaime has to turn, then; how else is he going to laugh at him?

"Well, I figured. You certainly gave me enough hints." Jaime shakes his head, "Come now, your story is you escaped a _wedding_ with the help of _wolf_ that died in the process? You Starks were never any good at lying; I suppose you'll count that as a point in your favor, though."

But Robb fails to share any mirth. Instead he is only staring up, confused and looking more lost than usual. "Why didn't you kill me?"

Jaime holds up his stump, "How was I going to? If the Freys couldn't do it, I doubt clubbing you to death would work."

Robb, though, seems unconvinced. "You have a sword. I've slept near enough to you-- if you knew, why did you not kill me, ser?"

He's using formal tones again, and that's when Jaime becomes confused. He doesn't know how to answer until, finally, he realizes he can answer in truth. "You have had just as many ample opportunities to kill me as I you, Stark. As you didn't slit my throat whilst I slept, I sought to return the favor."

Jaime doesn't know what he's expecting, then, but he gets it with Robb's wide blue eyes.

"Oh," he says, and then he smiles.

•

Jaime will say, "The young wolf is dead? About time, I suppose." He will turn, and then, very privately, he will try to remember the shape of the boy's face.


End file.
